Is your wha¯nau ready To trust?

Rotorua siblings believe many Ma¯ori families could benefit from setting up a trust. Rob Stock reports.

Siblings Tamihana and Leeana Hamiora-Reweti have a vision for the financial future of their wha¯ nau and are setting up a wha¯ nau trust to achieve it.

This vision involves one day developing papakainga (homes) on land in which their wha¯ nau have shares, and establishing a ‘‘homestead’’ to be a centre for them and their uri (descendants).

Despite having been around for many years, wha¯ nau trusts are little known, and little used, the siblings say. Figures from the Ma¯ ori Land Court show fewer than 300 are set up each year.

‘‘I do believe it’s something a lot of wha¯ nau should at least look into but a lot of people just don’t know they exist,’’ Tamihana says.

They can also help develop wha¯ nau whanaungatanga, which in te reo is a word for the close connection between people.

Wha¯ nau trusts have similarities to the family trusts many families used to own, preserve and develop assets for the benefit of themselves, their children and sometimes grandchildren – but you have to be Ma¯ ori to set one up.

The kinds of assets that family trusts hold tend in the main to be homes, baches, businesses, art, investments and boats.

Wha¯ nau trusts tend to be set up to hold communally owned land, homesteads to which wha¯ nau can return in times of hardship, and shares in Ma¯ ori land, the dividends from which can help pay to keep homesteads maintained and the rates paid.

They are cheaper to set up than family trusts, don’t automatically shut down after 80 years, and instead of having named beneficiaries, the beneficiaries are all the descendants of the tı¯puna (ancestors) named when the trust was set up.

The further back that ancestor is, the more beneficiaries there would be. A couple could set up a trust with themselves as the tı¯puna.

Tamihana Hamiora-Reweti knows about wha¯ nau trusts through his mahi with the Ministry of Justice and trustee industry, while Leeana HamioraReweti works at the Perpetual Guardian trustee company’s Rotorua office, which administers some Ahu Whenua Ma¯ ori land trusts.

Before these jobs, their knowledge was scant.

‘‘Growing up, we knew that they existed,’’ Tamihana Hamiora-Reweti says.

‘‘We knew our aunties, uncles and parents were involved with them in some shape or form but, in our wha¯ nau, it was not something that was actively talked about in regular conversation.’’

Since the siblings began the process of setting up the wha¯ nau trust, they have been finding out

how little others know of them.

‘‘It’s been scary to find out how little so many people do know,’’ Leeana Hamiora-Reweti says.

Patrick Gamble, chief executive of Perpetual Guardian, says ‘‘there’s this idea that New Zealand doesn’t recognise tikanga

principles, which is just nonsense’’.

‘‘We have got into a narrative that says our system doesn’t work for Ma¯ ori principles but actually it can. You just need to understand how it works.’’

Sometimes wha¯ nau who don’t know about the trusts can run into trouble and lose assets that were meant to be handed on to future generations.

Perpetual Guardian’s Gemma Mills says an eldest son might inherit the family homestead, and if it’s not in a trust, can lose it through a failed business.

One case Mills knew of was before the courts.

‘‘It was always considered by the grandmother that it would be a homestead but the elder son mortgaged it, ran into financial trouble, and the bank is saying, ‘We want our money back’,’’ she says.

‘‘Older Ma¯ ori women who are on their own will say, ‘I want to leave this house to my eldest son’.’’

Leeana and Tamihana Hamiora-Reweti also see a wha¯ nau trust as a way of strengthening wha¯ nau ties.

They care for their grandfather and plan to use a wha¯ nau trust to ensure the Ma¯ ori land shares he owns are protected for future generations.

But while his descendants may whakapapa back to that land, they may not all be aware that they do, or know the land shares recognising that are protected.

‘‘I saw it as an opportunity for us to come together as a wha¯ nau, and do what we could do to preserve these shares and entitlements that could possibly do something for us in the future,’’ Tamihana Hamiora-Reweti says.

‘‘If we have wha¯ nau representation at these hui, we could help steer things in a different direction,’’ he says.

Wha¯ nau by wha¯ nau trusts could help lift Ma¯ ori home ownership rates, he believes.

‘‘Hopefully one day some of my wha¯ nau can own homes on whenua we are partial owners in,’’ he says.

Some people use wha¯ nau trusts very similarly to how others use family trusts but his vision is long-term.

‘‘On our father’s side, there’s a piece of land that our wha¯ nau have in Tauranga, and the house that’s on there is, I believe, part of a wha¯ nau trust, and that has gone through many generations.

‘‘That’s in my mind the goal, that we have one or multiple whare that could benefit all of our wha¯ nau from my generation to my sister’s children, and their children. That would be the end goal,’’ he says.

A homestead would do the wha¯ nau a lot of good, Leeana Hamiora-Reweti says.

‘‘A lot of our family don’t live here, and there’s no actual homestead for everyone to come back to,’’ she says.

‘‘Knowing there’s a homestead to come back to keeps people interested and involved together.’’

As with family trusts, there can be tension in wha¯ nau trusts, which is why the Ma¯ ori Land Court has a disputes scheme that wha¯ nau can use to navigate to a solution through mediation.

Family dynamics can be a hard thing to navigate, Tamihana Hamiora-Reweti says.

‘‘I feel that’s a bit of a deterrent for some wha¯ nau.’’